Warstein, Germany
A nude climber stuck halfway up a cliff face in the pitch dark had to phone German police officers, who shone a spotlight on him so he could find handholds to lower himself back down, they said Friday.
The 47-year-old man was unable to explain why he had drunkenly stripped off at dusk on Thursday, packed all his clothes in his rucksack and headed up the 40-metre quarry wall in Warstein, 100 kilometres east of Düsseldorf.
Clinging to a ledge, he became too weak to proceed and could not get dressed for fear of falling. Hours later, becoming both very cold and sober, he managed to get out his mobile phone and contact police.
Police took him to hospital as a precaution, in case he had suffered from “exposure.”
Could happen to anyone… though methinks there’s a cautionary tale in there somewhere. Source: the Alpine Club of Canada newletter (thankfully without accompanying imagery).
Falcon Lake, Manitoba
My rockin’ kid brother John Paul Peters just completed his first 24-hour mountain bike race this last weekend. Not only did he survive, he even managed a 2nd place in the open solo category. Here’s how JP describes the experience on his blog, 29erlove.blogspot.com
“Well, it was great to race, and it was almost as good to finally be done. Each hole punched in the license plate represent a 7-km lap completed. Not an overly fast pace, the course was quite technical in places and fairly rooty and wet in the woods. Dallas told me early on that there would be sections of the trail that, after encountering over and over again, I would absolutely despise. He was right. There was that little mud hole just after the first climb. Had a way of draining my speed EVERY single time as I eventually gave up looking for that perfect line. There was that squishy swamp where I got stung in the butt cheek at least twice by wasps (pain then, Itch now). And there was that technical rocky section about half way through where several sharp rocks tried their hardest to puncture my sidewalls (luckily they were thwarted).
This was my first experience with a 24-hour race and in many ways it lived up to my expectations. There would be periods of intense desire to quit riding. There would be butt pains, hand pains, leg pains, gut pains, and all sorts of pain I’d probably never experienced. I did learn that I can stay on a bike longer than I thought I could. I learned that cantaloupe is the greatest thing in the world after 12 hours of racing. I learned that a little mud added repeatedly over the course of a number of hours has the ability to stop things from working. I learned that having someone to cheer you up and encourage you means that much more so many hours into the race. Vanessa is awesome. Thanks to everyone who was such a great cheering section for the racers (fgbc crew at the top of the list!) Renee T. even took a slow lap with me to help keep me human. Thanks dude!
Things that did not live up to my expectations: my butt is not sore from riding 23 hours—it is only sore from wasp stings.
I had no idea I could last as long as I did. I’m looking forward to getting feeling back into my left hand and being able to bend over to tie my shoes.
Great times… some random photos here…
24 Hours of Falcon Ridge official site here ”
Congratulations, little bro!
Via Ads of the World, here.
Winnipeg, Canada
I’ve always been interested in the oral narratives that are passed on from one generation to another. The launch of INDIGO’s Mother Tongue project provided incentive to begin a series of graphic “copyfree” posters featuring such stories as told by First Peoples. Above are the first two pieces: Two Wolves features the well-known Cherokee tale of the battle between good and evil as told by an elder to his grandson; Turtle includes the Anishinaabe story of how the turtle got its shell, and passes on the knowledge of the 13 large moons and 28 smaller segments that appear on the back of every turtle (many First Nations descendants are taught that the turtle shell represents the perfect depiction of the lunar year—I learned of this from one of our Indigenous clients).
You can read the stories (or download, distribute, or print these posters) here: Two Wolves (1.2 MB PDF); Turtle (1.3 MB PDF).
Thanks to Adrian J. K. Shum for your assistance. Credit for the wolf images goes to www.firstpeople.us
Winnipeg, Canada
The great Canadian educator, philosopher, scholar, literary critic, rhetorician, and communication theorist Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born 99 years ago today and grew up here in the ‘Peg (he attended Kelvin High School). Fitting, then, that I would receive an e-mail today from good friend (and former Circle colleague) Kevin Guenther (who knows that I’m somewhat of a McLuhan fan)… providing a link to a video clip of a classic piece of Woody Allen cinema that Marshall makes a cameo appearance in (Kevin came across it via Boing Boing… Sorry link is broken).
Good fun. Thanks, Kevin!
On mountains, everywhere
This past weekend, Ev and I enjoyed a short sortie with the Westie out to Riding Mountain National Park to take in the latest of her Manitoba Crafts Council show openings in Wasagaming. We spent a delightful dinner and overnight with old friends Celes and Sue Davar (Celes and I were both partners in Praxis Photographic Workshops some 20 years ago; he now runs Earth Rhythms—Sue is a remarkably talented potter and book-maker, and a longstanding friend of Ev’s). During the course of our conversation, Celes asked me whether I had noticed melt-back on glaciers in the Canadian Rockies in recent years (which of course I have, quite visibly in places like the Columbia Icefield). So it seemed more than a little coincidental that David Breashears’ latest documentary initiative would cross my desk today…
Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya showcases the work of photographer and mountaineer David Breashears, who with Glacier Research Imaging Project (GRIP), has retraced the steps of renowned mountain photographers of the past century to recapture images of these mountains and their glaciers from exactly the same vantage points. Rivers of Ice displays his recent photographs alongside the corresponding historic images, revealing the alarming loss in ice mass that has taken place over the intervening years. Visit the website (reports, videos, comparative photographs) here.
Above images: Graphic evidence of the loss of glacier mass between 1921 and 2007; the dotted line shows the Main Rongbuk Glacier’s height in 1921, while this 2007 photo freveals a loss of 320 vertical feet (nearly 100m) in ice mass since George Mallory took the same photograph in 1921; the tiny climber (upper right corner) gives scale to the remaining ice pinnacles.
I’ve often wondered what consciousness might look like… until this explanatory illustration crossed my desk today, that is. Thanks to Robert Fludd (aka Robertus de Fluctibus, 1574-1637), I need wonder no more. Full explicative notations here. :-|
Auditus, Visus, Odoratus, Gustus, Tactus… all ports open for input.
Lisbon, Portugal
Pedestrian advocates in Lisbon have replaced the white “zebra” stripes in four crosswalks with the stenciled names of 137 pedestrians killed by cars. On the curb, the tagline reads: “1/4 das vítimas de acidentes de automóvel são peões,” 1/4 of the victims of automobile accidents are pedestrians.
Story and images found here.
